


And all he wanted was to sleep.

by Random_ag



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Link (Legend of Zelda) Uses Sign Language, Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Pre-Canon, Sad Ending, Sign Language, Skull Kid Can Barely See, Tired Link (Legend of Zelda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26911300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: “Tell me about the good things you see and I’ll tell you the good things I see.”The first time he thought about it for a while. He wasn’t really used to thinking about good things he saw anymore; he was very tired.‘I saw a fish in Lake Hylia.’ he signed on the wooden hand. 'It was nice.’
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	And all he wanted was to sleep.

“Do not tell me of the war.”

Was it a rule?

“Tell me of other things, happier things.”

Maybe.

“Tell me about the good things you see and I’ll tell you the good things I see.”

The first time he thought about it for a while. He wasn’t really used to thinking about good things he saw anymore; he was very tired.

‘I saw a fish in Lake Hylia.’ he signed on the wooden hand. 'It was nice.’

“There is a lake?”

'Yes. There is Lake Hylia in Hyrule.’

“Is there a sea in Hyrule?”

'No, there is no sea in Hyrule.’

“Is there a mountain with snow in Hyrule?”

'No, there is no snow. There is a volcano.’

“What’s that?”

'It is…’

He stopped for a second.

'It’s Death Mountain.’

He was very confused.

'Everybody knows Death Mountain. Even the Kokiri. How can you not know it?’

He fell quiet for a long moment. His little fingers curled around his own, staring intently at the blur of rosy skin.

“I don’t know Hyrule.” he muttered finally, a little sheepish. “I never went there.”

So he started telling him of Hyrule - of its nooks and crannies and fields. And in turn he heard all about the woods and the bugs, the frogs, the stalfos. They talked and signed of blissful nothing for hours on end everytime they met, revealing and learning meaningless silly secrets. He loved those lazy endless moments terribly. Nothing else existed, when he signed quietly on the ashen palm about useless little things nobody would have ever cared to know about as a curious thin voice asked him to tell him more of the mundane, utterly uninteresting lands he had gotten used to seeing.

He wrote on his palm about the Kakariko cuccos, the song in the windmill, and how big and hot and desolate Gerudo desert is; he listened on about the stray fairies’ lazy journeys, the songs of lonely birds and the colors and tastes of poisonous mushrooms.

He would have taken that boring, hushed, insignificant life over anything else.

He was tired.

He just wanted to sleep.

'Can you sing to me, please?’

“I can’t sing very well.”

'All singing is good singing to me.’

“Not mine.”

'Yours especially. Please, sing to me.’

“I don’t know what song to sing.”

'Any song will do. Please, sing to me.’

He waited an infinite couple seconds, and then.

Then he was a child again.

His voice wasn’t made for singing - it was thin and crackly and weak - but it was perfect. Suddenly, as he held his hand and listened to him singing, he was a child again.

Gone the heavy armor, gone the scars of battle; gone the weapons, the helmet, the memories of war and strife and years he should not have lived through twice.

He closed his eye and listened long and quiet to the voice of a friend lulling him to safety in the forest of his childhood.

His fingers moved slowly when he signed on his palm: 'I don’t want to leave.’

His friend was only kind when he told him o so softly: “You don’t have to.”

He ran his wooden fingers through the glimmering pale yellow blur he recognized as hair, so sweetly, with no malice.

“I will find clothes and food for you, and water when you’re thristy. I will make you a house so you don’t have to sleep in the rain, and we will play together and sing songs all the times you want.”

There was no corruption for the captain.

He stood up, holding the little wooden hand.

'Lead me.’ he simply signed.

He was perfectly lucid in his descent through the depths of the Lost Woods, gently accompanied by a little imp into neverending darkness, into the clearings where no sunlight could ever shine, into the slow useless chase of a childhood killed too many years prior. He chased the ghost of happier pasts by his own volition, losing the plates of metal and flesh upon his bones, mind slowly forsaking the glossy bloody sight of its tiring, lonely adult future as it willingly regressed to childish simplicity.

He was tired.

All he could think of as he walked into his curse was that he was so, so tired.

And that all he wanted was to sleep.


End file.
